terça-feira, 16 de agosto de 2016

Losing Trust: Frustrations Grow Over German Response to Terror

Losing Trust:
Frustrations Grow Over German Response to Terror

In the wake of
recent attacks, Germany's conservative Christian Democrats over
tripping over themselves with proposals for tightening anti-terror
laws. Instead of calming the people, they are simply confusing them.
By SPIEGEL Staff

Stay levelheaded.
Keep calm. That was German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière's
message after a mass shooting and two terrorist attacks jolted the
country last month. Do not overreact. Make no rash decisions. First
wait for the investigations to be completed in Würzburg, Ansbach and
Munich.

Two and a half weeks
later, de Maizière is back in the same place, on the ground floor of
his ministry in Berlin. Behind him is the German eagle, black on a
dark blue wall. De Maizière is about to present a raft of proposals
that he and his colleagues consider necessary to combat terrorism.
"Measures to increase security in Germany," he calls them.

He understands
people's concerns, the minister says. That's why the state must do
everything in its power. Deporting criminal foreigners must be made
easier, he adds. The Facebook pages of refugees who come from
countries neighboring Syria must be combed in an effort to trace any
Islamic State sympathies. The minister wants to loosen data privacy
laws in order to make increased video surveillance possible. That,
and a lot more.

De Maizière also
uses the word "levelheaded" again, albeit only once. This
time, he speaks a lot more about determination. "Security has
many aspects," de Maizière says, one of which is "toughness."

But things could be
a lot tougher.

A Raft of Measures

Before de Maizière's
much-heralded public statement, a so-called "Berlin
Declaration," made the rounds among conservative state interior
ministers belonging to de Maizière's Christian Democratic Union
(CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union
(CSU). It was originally supposed to be published next Thursday. The
six-page paper begins with a turgid quote from Prussian philosopher
Wilhelm von Humboldt: "Without security, there is no freedom."
This is followed by a list of 27 proposals. More police. More powers
for Germany's Bundeswehr armed forces to be deployed domestically.
More data retention. A ban on burqas. Sanctions against new arrivals
who refuse to integrate, "up to the point of expulsion."

The paper's authors
even dusted off an old conservative rallying cry, demanding that
rules surrounding dual citizenship be tightened after they were
loosenedd by the governments of former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder
in 2000 and his successor Angela Merkel in 2014.

Hundreds of
thousands of German Turks with passports from both countries are
having their loyalties openly questioned by some Christian Democrats.
"We suggest that those who want to engage in the politics of
foreign governments leave Germany," the paper reads.

Integration,
security, the fight against terror, Turkish policy. The lines are
blurring.

A year after
Merkel's proclamation that "We can do it," there seems to
be few traces of last summer's optimism in the conservatives' ranks.
Back then, the chancellor was still confident that a "strong
Germany" could absorb hundreds of thousands of immigrants and
train and integrate them into the country's workforce.

The conservative
interior ministers' proposals highlight to what extent fear has
become a driving political force in Germany. Citizens fear terrorism
and violence, while politicians fear the will of voters.

'A Declaration of
Utter Fear'

The two most
prominent forces behind the "Berlin Declaration" are men
from two states where elections will be held in September. One is the
interior minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lorenz Caffier,
who compiled the proposals. The other is Frank Henkel, Berlin's
senator of the interior, who enthusiastically supported them.

The two are reported
to have spent weeks preparing their advance. Caffier and Henkel are
the Christian Democrats' top candidates in those two northeastern
states, and the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD)
party is close on their heels. The AfD is campaigning with slogans
like, "Protect citizens better" and "Stop the asylum
chaos now!" In both states, the Christian Democrats risk getting
pushed out of the government.

In their panic, the
two conservative interior ministers have been pandering to peoples'
fears, however absurd they may be. For instance, as calls for a burqa
ban grow louder, the number of Muslim women who actually wear the
full-body covering, at least in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, is
probably quite low.

Muslim women wearing
burqas in Wiesbaden, Germany Zoom

REUTERS

Muslim women wearing
burqas in Wiesbaden, Germany

Even experts within
the security apparatus are bewildered by the smorgasbord of
proposals. "The paper reads like a declaration of utter fear of
the AfD," says André Schulz from the German Police Union. "Of
course we'd be grateful for more personnel. But in many other
aspects, it's reasonable to question whether they can really provide
more security."

Even Interior
Minister de Maizière feels duped. There is talk in his party of a
"targeted affront" because some of his state-level
counterparts are stealing the show with their haste. Contrary to
initial reports, de Maizière did not sign off on the first version
of the "Berlin Declaration."

De Maizière deems a
veil ban unconstitutional. "You can't ban everything you don't
agree with," de Maizière says. In addition, his party will not
attempt to abolish dual citizenships -- that would violate the treaty
the Christian Democrats have with their coalition partners, the
Social Democrats (SPD). For the latter, a reform of Germany's
citizenship laws was one of the major modernization projects of the
past 20 years.

Those were the two
points that the SPD had honed in on over the last week. Rolf Jäger,
the interior minister of Germany's most populous state, North
Rhine-Westphalia, spoke of a "crude pandering to rightist
clientele." The floor leader for the SPD in the German
parliament, Thomas Oppermann, called them a "desperate attempt
to show a conservative profile," saying the paper contained
"almost exclusively measures from the discard pile of domestic
security. The conservative state ministers had "overshot their
target," Oppermann added. The leader of the Social Democrats and
Germany's vice chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, left no room for doubt
that an abolishment of dual citizenship would not be possible as long
as his party was in the government.

Summer of Angst

One thing is
certain: The final version of the "Berlin Declaration" will
contain a number of revisions by the time it's formally adopted by
the conservative interior ministers on August 18. Drafts are already
making the rounds in which certain passages have been completely
stricken from the paper, most notably the one about abolishing double
citizenship.

Supporters of
Erdogan at a demonstration in Cologne on July 31 Zoom

DPA

Supporters of
Erdogan at a demonstration in Cologne on July 31

But postponing
something is not the same as abandoning it completely. In
conservative circles, some are weighing whether to keep those
proposals warm for next year's election campaign. The images of
supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan waving flags in
Cologne in recent days left many Christian Democrats fuming. Some in
the party believe this could be used to score points among voters.
"This issue hits a nerve," one party representative said.

Stay levelheaded?
Keep calm? In this summer of angst, few are still capable of that.

The latest survey by
the respected German pollster Infratest dimap for public broadcaster
ARD likely provides cold comfort for Germany's top political parties,
especially for Merkel's conservatives. Only one-third of Germans
believe the chancellor is pursuing the right refugee policies. And
three-quarters are afraid of further terrorist attacks. "We need
to act now," urges CDU campaigner Caffier.

Now? In recent
months, German security laws have already been tightened and
additional restrictions have been added to asylum laws. Even
government representatives admit that the moves were "pretty
tough."

Reforms that went
into effect in March make it easier to deport foreigners if they are
convicted of crimes. Politicians made the change in response to the
sexual attacks in Cologne on New Year's Eve. And just before the
summer recess, the Christian Democrat and Social Democrat-led
government coalition also pushed through new anti-terror legislation
enabling the country's domestic intelligence agency, the Office for
the Protection of the Constitution, to conduct surveillance against
people as young as 14 and to share data with all EU and NATO
countries. In the future, the German Federal Police and the Federal
Criminal Police Office will be permitted to deploy undercover agents
to respond to potential threats.

Following the mass
shootings and attacks of recent weeks, Chancellor Merkel ultimately
presented a "Nine-Point Plan" that offers an A to Z package
of responses, ranging from deportations to increased cooperation with
foreign intelligence services. None of the nine points is entirely
new, but they are now to be pursued with much greater energy. They
include provisions making it easier for the German armed forces to be
deployed domestically -- a step that Defense Minister Ursula von der
Leyen is hoping to use to chalk up political points.

Meanwhile, CSU
leaders are calling for electronic ankle bracelets to be placed on
potential attackers. The Bavarian state interior minister, Joachim
Herrmann, also said there can no longer be "any taboos"
when it comes to deporting refugees to crisis regions.

It's getting
difficult to keep track of all the demands being made.

Going Too Far?

This week, Interior
Minister de Maizière drew criticism with a proposal that came across
like a half-baked idea. Even before he presented his 16-page list,
news leaked that he wanted to loosen doctor-patient secrecy laws in
order to enable early detection of possible attacks.

The proposal
prompted criticism not only from doctors, but also from one of his
allies within his own party, German Health Minister Hermann Gröhe,
who had been on a trip to the United States. De Maizière had
apparently not run his ideas by the Health Ministry. Gröhe's
ministry promptly reported that doctors are already permitted to
contact the authorities if they have any information about a possible
terror threat -- if, for example, a potential terrorist or mass
shooter hints at such an attack during a therapy session. The
ministry warned that any move to further tighten laws might keep a
potential attacker from seeking therapy in the first place.

Frank Ulrich
Montgomery, the president of the German Medical Association,
intervened the same day the news got leaked. In response, the
interior minister publicly stated that he had no intention of
eliminating doctor-patient confidentiality rules. He said he would
seek a dialogue with doctors about "reducing the threat to
people to the greatest degree possible."

"There must be
a response to the feelings of insecurity among the populace,"
says Jürgen Falter, a professor of political science at the
University of Mainz. But in order "to maintain credibility,
politicians need to speak with a single voice." That's not
happening though, he says. Many of the latest proposals are coming
from individuals within the Christian Democrats and haven't been
agreed to within the party or with its coalition partner, the SPD, or
even clearly thought out. That's not how you convince voters, says
Falter.

'Not How You Create
More Security'

The cacophony of
voices around the issue of security is also upsetting some within
conservative circles. Sources within the Christian Democrats say that
if the goal had been to provide a show of strength in the run-up to
elections in Berlin and the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania,
then the party has failed. "First a packet of anti-terror laws,
then a nine-point plan, now a 'Berlin Statement,' and then de
Maizière on top of it all -- this is not exactly how you create more
security," the source says.

Burkhard Hirsch, the
former interior minister for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia,
describes it as a "hapless attempt to signalize to voters that
we're not inactive." The security agencies' powers have been
expanded in unprecedented ways in recent years, he adds, with
Germany's Constitutional Court having to step in more than a dozen
different times because the government went too far. "If this
kind of agitation continues, then we will jeopardize the liberal way
in which we live," says Hirsch, who belongs to the
libertarian-leaning Free Democratic Party.

Domestic security
has always been one of the conservatives' key issues. But now it
could be said: Fear eats the soul.